NTLDR missing 2

[JillC]

I'm going round and round in circles. The computer had a trojan virus (the user can't remember which one). After he'd used AVG to clean off the virus, he deleted a few other files then restarted his PC. So it came up with a black screen and NTLDR missing message.

I created a CD with boot disk files as per the MS KB instructions. The computer booted up and I copied a few files out of MyDocuments which looked like they might be needed. Then I went into disk managment to check the partitions - it reports a NTFS partition on C: Then I re-ran the virus scanner. So the next step the instruction sheet gave me was to repair the master boot record by using the FIXMBR command from the Windows XP Recovery Console.

So that took me to another sheet which said to restart the computer with the Windows CD. However if I do that, and select R it comes back with a message to say that there is no hard disk.

Somewhere along the line I must have found some other info about the Recovery Console. I decided to download the SP2 pack and followed all the instructions to integrate the XP Service pack 2 files into the Windows XP installation folder because the CD is SP1 and the computer is reporting that it is newer. So all that seemed to work up to the very last step which was Run C:\XPCD\i386\winnt32

This then asked me to enter the key and then as it starts it immediately can't find any of the files it needs to copy, so after telling it to skip a few dozen times, I decided to abort.

I don't quite know where to go next. When I tried to follow the instructions to put the Recovery Console on the hard disk, it said it couldn't find boot.ini

So what should I do now?

 

[teckystuff]

silly question maybe but bear with me as you never stated if you tried these.
Did you check that there is not a floppy disk in the drive?
Did you try starting in safe mode?

You could always reinstall XP over itself but just bear in mind you will probably have to re-install all your apps and drivers etc but your data should be fine.

*****************************************
Your mouse has moved - reboot for changes to take effect

 

[allteltec]

Is this a new computer with SATA HD drive ? If so you need to load drivers to see the HD.

 

[JillC]

teckystuff - There is not a FDD at all which is why I had to create a CD to boot with.
I couldn't get to a point to try safe mode.

allteltec - In the device manager the hard drive is reported as WDC WD80 030-00HKAD SCSI Disk Drive.


Since then .....

When I went to the PC to find the answer to allteltec's question I discovered that whatever I had done yesterday had partly rectified the problem. Now, on start-up if I ignore the message "press any key to start up from the CD" it will actually boot from C:. However it displays a message invalid boot.ini

It does start up and looks fine. Very very slow to get to that point however.

Also, in the device manager there is a listing -
? Other Devices
? RAID Controller

Should I do anything about that?

Thanks for your help.

 

[Sival]

I'd run a repair on Windows with the installation disc. As for the device manager listings, I'm assuming you are you not using RAID, since there are drivers missing. I'd go to the BIOS and disable it. You can always reenable if you want to use it at a later time. Or, you can load in the RAID drivers from the motherboard disc. I worked on a machine a while back where the optical drives were being detected as SCSI, which they obviously weren't. I had to reinstall the motherboard IDE drivers.

 

[JillC]

Sival - When I try to use the Recovery Console from the installation disk, I get an error to say that the hard drive is missing.

Perhaps I need to load a driver but how do I find out which? (You know the point where it says press F6 to install a 3rd party driver)

 

[Freestone]

Have you looked inside the PC for the type of drive (SATA, IDE, SCSI; I'm betting SATA), and where the drive is attached (PCI controller or motherboard)? If the drive is attached to the motherboard, can you locate the manufacturer and model of the motherboard, otherwise the maker and model of the controller?

It does sound as if you need to load a driver and answering these questions should help narrow down whose driver.

 

[JillC]

I'm ahead of you Freestone. I opened the case and found that it has a Western Digital Caviar SE Serial ATA Drive. I went to the WD website and have downloaded a diagnostic tool and Promise Ultra Controller. I'm about to run the diagnostic tool and see what happens.

As for the Motherboard - it says Asus and on startup there is a screen which tells me A8V Deluxe - press DEL to run setup. Apart from that I'm having difficulty finding any info which makes sense. Any suggestions?

 

[JillC]

The diag tool says there is a cable failure. S won't run.

Can't figure out what the Promise Controller does.

what now?

 

[linney]

Sounds like you have a cabling problem inside the box. Alternatively you could try setting your Bios to Safe Defaults or equivalent.

What is a Promise Controller ?

http://groups.google.com/group/micr...a+Promise+Controller"&rnum=1#e76f9e37399dd177

 

[JillC]

linney,
Would the cable problem cause the disk to be read as a SCSI disk drive in the Device Manager when it is actually a SATA drive? Is it really a cable problem or motherboard?

 

[linney]

Sorry I am not that familiar with SATA or SCSI drives someone else might jump in here.

I did see this on Google and thought some of the links might be helpful?

http://groups.google.com/groups?sou...=SCSI+disk+shows+as+SATA+drive+device+manager

 

[Freestone]

SATA drives and RAID controllers sometimes appear as SCSI devices in Device Manager.

The fact that you are actually able to communicate with the drive and boot XP, albeit slowly, leads me to suspect that cabling is okay. What drive did you select for testing when running the diagnostics?

If you downloaded the Promise driver from Western Digital, that is not what you need.

The A8V Deluxe motherboard has two SATA controllers, a VIA VT8237 and a Promise PDC20378 RAID controller. I suspect that the SATA drive is connected to the VIA SATA controller, but you will have to confirm that by visual inspection.

The drivers and manual can be found on ASUS website. I can't give a direct link, but go to

http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx?SLanguage=en-us

then Select Product motherboard, Select Series Socket939, then Select Models A8V Deluxe then click Search

Click the Drivers tab. Assuming the SATA drive is connected to the VIA controller, you'll want drivers from the package titled VIA VT6420 (VT8237) SATA RAID Driver Package Version 2.20D WHQL. Step 7) 2. near bottom of the Readme.txt file tells you what files to copy to the floppy.

 

[JillC]

Thank you so much Freestone. I had spent hours ploughing through the Asus website without a clue as to what I needed and trying in vain to find a solution in the FAQs. This is all starting to make sense now - The cable is attached to the motherboard next to a label which says SATA. Now that I know what to look for I can see it!

Actually don't have a floppy drive. But with a bit of luck it'll find it on a CD.

I'll get back to you soon.

 

[JillC]

hmmmmmmm. Spoke too soon.

That readme file says:
* Boot system from OS installing CD-ROM. (okay I can do that)
* Make sure VT6420 BIOS is executed by the system BIOS when POST. (No idea how to find out what this is. Certainly the hdd is not recognised by the BIOS)
* Press "F6" when OS installer starts running. (OKAY I can do that)
* Insert floppy disk. (Well I can'it and it doesn't want to find the CD instead of the floppy).

I tried booting up normally (well it's not really normal) and running setup to install the drivers. But that doesn't seem to have done anything.

If I go into the setup for BIOS and then out again, I get a quick message on the screen "No drive attached to FastTrak Controller"

so ..... How do I make sure VT6420 BIOS is executed and/or should I add in a FDD?

 

[linney]

Part of the first link may be familiar to you by now.

Error Message:Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in you
thread779-972802

These are just general links for you to look at.

http://groups.google.com/groups?sou...8&rls=GGLG,GGLG:2005-48,GGLG:en&q=VT6420+BIOS

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLG,GGLG:2005-48,GGLG:en&q=VT6420+BIOS

 

[Freestone]

I think the option you are looking for appears on page 4-24 of the manual found at the link I gave earlier.

BIOS Advanced Menu, Onboard Devices Configuration, OnChip SATA Boot ROM. This should be set to Enabled (and is shown as the default setting).

 

[Freestone]

And I am not sure how else to load the drivers without a floppy drive. Can you borrow a USB floppy drive? I'm not sure that'll work as I've only ever used internal floppies when installing/repairing an OS.

 

[directlyconnected]

You absolutely need a floppy drive to load third party scsi or RAID drivers at startup---if this is what you are talking about. How did your user get this trojan in the first place? And what files did they delete? Norton Ghost and registry backup tools will definitely save you a lot of trouble and these headaches. Hijack This (freeware)works decent with finding registry hooks. A good website is Major Geeks dot com, for some very good backup and recovery freeware. Later.

Tim

 

[JillC]

Thank you so much for all your help. A big star to Freestone for very clear and precise advice. Also a star to linney for finding a link where bcastner explained about why you need a floppy.

I took out a fdd from an old system and plugged it in. It couldn't read a floppy, so I took it out again and was just putting it back into the old PC when I suddenly realised this stupid woman had put the cable in the wrong way round! Once I had installed the fdd properly it worked like a dream. (Of course I had to go back to the MS website to find out about the error message after running fixmbr)

There was actually a floppy A and a floppy B showing up in My Computer. When I disabled the floppy, rebooted and enabled the floppy, the second floppy drive disappeared. I also made a change to the BIOs settings based on the Asus website.

The result is, it's powering up really quickly and running super fast. And no error messages. No lost data. Hurray!!!!!

Thank you, directlyconnected, I needed your first sentence a couple of days ago. However, as for the rest - MS KB 314503 states that "NTLDR is missing" because master boot record, partition tables, boot sector or NTLDR file is corrupted - nothing to do with registry.

Thank you everybody for your input.

Jill.